education and health care and building in infrastructure, rebuilding our schools, dealing with the environment, our perspective is absolutely essential. so you may have women in congress, a couple, but what really matters is to have women at the table so that our perspectives, our lifetime of experience can be reflected in the work we do. >> you've been at the table for a while but your influence is obviously increasing. tell me where you stand on fiscal cliff. what's going to happen here, congresswoman? >> well, i am hoping because i'm the kind of person that always worked across the aisle. in fact on my foreign-ones committee, kay granger and i have been called the odd couple, we work well together. i've spoken to hal rodgers, chairman of the appropriations committee, i'm optimist being that we can sit at the table and get these things done. comprehensive tax reform is going to take longer, but we can make sure that the middle class keeps its tax cuts. we can make sure we target some waste. you can have across-the-board cuts. we have to have a very clear plan to cut back on certain areas. we